Before it even hit shelves, 12 million copies of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows were shipped to retailers. It was the most anticipated book in years, and the end of the epic quest that kept children and adults alike enthralled for a decade. People lined up at local bookstores hours before its midnight release to assure their copy (except in Madison), and be one of the first to know the outcome of their favorite characters. However, some of us decided to wait and borrow it from a friend rather then give in to the insanity.

I finally secured the book and the time required to flip though its roughly 800 pages of story. The main question is was it worthy of the hype? The answer is a resounding…

No.

I got into the Harry Potter books after seeing the first movie. The books were clever and smart, a passage to my youth. That changed with the first death in the fourth book. Still, I enjoyed The Goblet of Fire. The fifth book left me cold, while the sixth restored some of my faith in the series.

Without spoiling anything for those that haven’t read it, the seventh book just seemed lazy. The author draws on “Lord of the Rings,” “Star Wars,” and World War 2 so much, I half expected Luke Skywalker and a bunch of hobbits to defeats Hitler in the end. J. K. Rowling weaves her world around the story of others, trying to make it seem like her own. In this case she fails miserably.

While the story itself encompasses hundreds of pages, the ending seems rushed. Worse, the section that explains what happens to some of the characters after nineteen years was extremely weak. Rowling would have been wise not to include it at all; as it was predictable and felt like an afterthought written an hour before the book went to press.

While I was not a fan of this book (and quite happy I did not waste my money on it), it does complete the series, and worth the read if you made your way through the other six books. Grab a copy from your local library and complete the adventure. While you’re waiting for a copy, just watch the Star Wars Trilogy; the experience will be about the same.